?I cannot prevent the French from being French.??Charles de Gaulle
An angry mob is always a concern, but a citizenry that fights back is a citizenry worthy respect.
Here in the U.S., people have finally begun objecting to the injustice they?ve endured. Progress has been incremental, but it?s preferable to allowing engineered passivity to continually quash dissent.
The French, by contrast, have protest in their blood. If they think they?re getting shafted, they do something about it. They take to the streets. They raise hell. They let those in charge know they?re mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.
The Yellow Vest anti-government protests roiling Paris are a case in point. In the most vigorous demonstrations to hit the French capital since 1968, in response to a fuel tax few can afford, the citizens of France are voicing their disgust at a system in hock to the moneyed elite.
Among the tens of thousands Gilets Jaunes opposing a government run for and by the crooked was 36-year-old Christophe Dettinger. He was no different from the other protesters in the movement, except for one thing.
He is the former cruiserweight champion of France.
On January 5 Dettinger was with his wife on a bridge over the River Seine when police tear-gassed protesters to disperse the crowd. Havoc ensued, which was perhaps the point, since it makes for good TV, and Dettinger witnessed several gendarmes striking a young woman.
Once a fighter, always a fighter, the 6-foot-4-inch former French champion known as the ?Gypsy of Massy,? after the south Paris suburb where he was bought up in a community of travelers, overreacted and struck the riot police with his fists.
After going on the lam for two days, Dettinger, realizing he had been filmed attempting to punch the cops, turned himself in. He was detained, booked, threatened with a seven-year sentence on charges of ?intentional violence against a person endowed with state power,? and denied bail.
At his trial yesterday, Dettinger said he was ?not proud? of his actions and ?should have just pushed, not have hit? the officers, but was a ?normal citizen? who grew tired watching French politicians ?gorging themselves? at the people?s expense.
Describing in court what prompted his actions, Dettinger said he saw ?pensioners getting gassed. I got gassed. I could not find my wife. I saw gendarmes bludgeoning people, a lady who was on the ground. I did not have control.
?I defended this lady on the ground. When I see someone vulnerable being hit, I go, I cannot do otherwise. I do not look at the uniform, I look at the man who does that.
?When I see an injustice, I react.?
The lady in question, Gwenaelle Antinori Le Joncour, who spoke in Dettinger?s defense during yesterday?s trial at the Paris Criminal Court, said, ?I have a severe lung disease, the slightest blow can cause them to tear. If that happens, I die. The boxer saved my life. If he hadn?t done what he had, I would have died on the spot.?
The prosecution wanted to throw the book at Dettinger and demanded he serve three years in jail. He was found guilty as charged and sentenced to 30 months, 18 months of which were suspended. But the judge, perhaps concerned about blowback, sentenced him to one-year in ?semi-liberty,? meaning he will be free during the day but must sleep in prison at night.
He is also forbidden from entering Paris for the next six months.
